blu sunne: Blog by Lester Strong: Artist Linda Stein

Went recently to see New York City-based artist Linda Stein’s current exhibition “Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Females,” at Flomenhaft Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea district. What a show! The tapestries and sculpture honor ten female exemplars of resistance to the World War II holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis against Europe’s Jewish population. The art itself is fierce, as demanding for viewers to look at as it must have been for Stein to create. Yet make no mistake, it may be demanding, but it’s equally powerful.

The women honored include three well-known individuals: Anne Frank, whose diary published after the war by her father (the only member of the family to survive) was not only a world-wide best seller, but led to a Broadway play and an award-winning movie and TV miniseries; Ruth Gruber, an American-born journalist and photographer who in 1944 escorted 1000 refugee children from Europe to the United States and after the war devoted her life to rescue work; and Hannah Szenes (her last name is often Anglicized to “Senesh”), a poet and playwright who was parachuted into Yugoslavia by the British to help rescue Jews, but was caught and killed by the Nazis.

The eight remaining women, lesser known from an American perspective, but all of them deserving wider recognition, include Vitka Kempner, a resistance fighter in the Vilna ghetto (survived the war); Noor Inayat Khan, British spy and secret operative behind Nazi lines in occupied Europe (killed by the Nazis); Zivia Lubetkin, a leader of the Jewish underground in occupied Warsaw (survived the war); Gertrud Luckner, a German Catholic who smuggled Jews over the border into Switzerland (survived the war); Nadezhda Popova, a Russian bomber pilot during the war whose heroism helped defeat the Nazi war machine that killed millions of her fellow country people (survived the war); Hadassah Bimko Rosensaft, who as a medical assistant in the Auschwitz-Birkenau infirmary helped save hundreds of Jewish inmates from the gas chambers and who after the war helped thousands of critically ill inmates survive; and Nancy Wake, British Special Operations and French maquis resistance fighter who was a courier for several escape networks in occupied France (survived the war).

Linda is an old friend of mine, and I’ve watched her art morph over the years from figurative to abstract then back to (largely) figurative. Her loft then and now is located in the Tribeca section of Manhattan, and she was evacuated after witnessing the fall of the twin towers on 9/11. Since then she has spent much of her time and energy seeking ways to empower the powerless through her art in a world that can be threatening to people in so many different ways and from so many different sources.

I profiled her art in the June 2015 issue of A&U magazine, where she talks about empowering women and men threatened by the AIDS specter that hangs over us all these days.

Looking at her show “Holocaust Heroes: Fierce Women,” it occurred to me: Why not honor in some strikingly public way the “fierce women” who have been involved in the AIDS movement for so many years? Of course I’m thinking about prominent individuals like actress Elizabeth Taylor, who did so much to raise public awareness of the disease and funds for research efforts. I’m also thinking of Dr. Matthilde Krim, founding chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR). The solidarity of both these women with the AIDS community over the decades is legendary the world over. But I’m also thinking of those whose contributions are lesser known or celebrated, but still important in the history of the disease and deserve attention.

One of these is well known in her own right, but seldom mentioned in an AIDS context: Doris Day. Commentators have noted a positive turning point in the social perception of this disease with the death of Rock Hudson from AIDS-related causes in 1985. But what about Doris Day’s very public embrace of her friend and movie co-star on her television show Doris Day’s Best Friends (1985-1986) when he was already near death? The show aired on the Christian Broadcasting Network and her message of love and compassion reached millions who might well have needed some enlightenment on the human tragedy caused by AIDS.

Then there are women associated with AIDS activism over the decades: for example, novelist Sarah Schulman (profiled by me in the August 2000 issue of A&U), writer and filmmaker Amber Hollibaugh (profiled in the November 2000 issue of A&U), and artist Mary Fisher (cover story for the February 2001 issue of A&U), among Americans. In Africa, Princess Kasune Zulu (“Princess” is her given first name; profiled in the August 2010 issue of A&U) became a force to be reckoned with in Zambia and (through her radio program) large swaths of southern Africa.

And let us not forget medical researchers such as Martine Peters and Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (both French) or Dr. Grace Aldrovandi and Dr. Deborah Persaud (both American and both winners of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Scientist award) who have contributed immensely to our knowledge of the disease.

There are more. No doubt many more.

We have the AIDS quilt, commemorating publicly those who have died of AIDS. Why not a public monument to those whose lives are testimony to the “fierce women” who have taken on the demon of AIDS and done so much to help tame it?

Lester Strong is Special Projects Editor for A&U, with a twenty-year history of writing about HIV/AIDS among many other topics and issues.These short articles, mostly related to the disease, are reprinted from his blog blu sunne: Notes from a Pop-Up Life in the Arts. For more of his writing on a variety of topics, visit his blog at blusunne.com.

POPULAR CATEGORY

Art & Understanding, Inc. is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. The mission of Art & Understanding, Inc.’s A&U magazine is to collect, archive, publish and distribute the growing body of art, activism, and current events emanating from the AIDS pandemic. It was created for the HIV-affected community.